#129

I think he behaved like an asshole towards the end, but presumably he found fault with me too, and none of this stops me from getting that manic glint in my eye when I tell stories about what we got up to. And I do tell the stories, and I treasure them and I think all of it was worth it, even how worthless he made me feel at the end, because up to then things were so good, so intense and vibrant and exciting, and then after the end I bounced back anyway, so where’s the damage?

It was perfect timing. I’d had a few months of freedom now and had regained my confidence, rediscovered my capacity for adventure. Plus summer was on its way and often that makes me feel kind of invincible. That’s when #129 showed up and all of this got magnified tenfold. We conspired together, we dreamed up wild and crazy schemes, we inhabited our own private world of in-jokes. Other people might talk about soulmates; #129 was my partner in crime. Nobody else comes even close. He didn’t even live in the same country as me, but that didn’t stop us from meeting up regularly to cause havoc.

We were on the same wavelength, that’s what it was.

It was not normal in any way.

He gave me a lot. At the end, he said we had never had a real friendship. That stung. It was the kind of statement that makes you wonder if you’ve gone completely mad, if you’ve made up everything that happened over so long, the times you laughed together, the times you cried together, the giant fucking phone bills you ran up and the way he missed Ryanair flights like they were buses and how you were able to have sex that you couldn’t have with just anyone. And those mix CDs that still slay you. But okay. So maybe I never really knew him, then. But the person I thought I knew: that person gave me a lot. Thanks.